F1 and the GPWC.....

[Super Tourer]

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns12237.html

Link to a story on www.grandprix.com about the GPWC meeting with SLEC in Geneva to explore the future of F1.

The GPWC you may remember, was/is going to be the manufacturer's version of Grand Prix racing, in which they took a larger share of the money. Currently all the teams take 47% of the TV revenue between them.

This is a good read and shows some of the deals that have been done in the past.

I posted on another thread that I didn't believe the GPWC would ever happen, and it seems an agreement between the parties has been made. There are a variety of reasons for this, not least that future TV deals are likely to be at a lower rate (as per football), indeed Kirch who purchased SLEC holdings from Bernie E paid so much in TV rights across Europe it eventually bankrupted his organisation.

I'm sure, everyone has cast their eye over the CART/IRL split and the ensuing financial mire that has followed, along with the fact that the bouyant sponsorship market the teams were expecting to fill the future tobacco void is slow in materialising, with only a handfull of significant deals across the whole grid.

This is before we consider if the teams could actually form a set of regulations they could all agree on - which even Gerhard Berger (whilst BMW boss), felt was unlikely and cited several examples where maufacturer self interest had left series in tatters!

[josvandeperre]

Funny lot here on this site - this is one of the most important events in recent F1 history - in essence Bernie has ceded some control and some of his income to others - and no-one here seems to care !

[kdr]

maybe if jacques villeneuve was involved in the talks..

[Kirk]

You're dam right it's important. Trouble is when you hear all the talk, the on and off again stories and the cynicism and with projected dates of 2008 and beyond, well lets just say it's difficult to get excited.

[Bononi]

So what can we expect for the future ?????

[Super Tourer]

I think we will see a gradual handover of more revenue to the teams. Even Bernie E won't live forever, so it may be part of a process that see's a new hierachy.

At the moment the revenue stream is disparate, as a comparison it would be like a football team getting revenue for showing the matches, but no revenue from the sale of shirts/merchandise.

I think we will eventually see a more centralised situation with revenue more evenly distributed across the board, prob involving a better deal for some of the circuits who only get entry money for the financial risk of staging the event.

Bernie E holds an almost unique position in sport, which has seen the majority of the revenue from a global event directed to his companies. His argument for this, is that it has made all the team owners wealthy men as well, and provided a showcase for car makers to shift metal. This is true, pre-Bernie there was no organised revenue for the teams, and many of them they did individual deals per race with the circuit owners/promoters. Undoubtedly Bernie made modern day F1

However, it is a seminal moment and possibly heralds the start, of the end, of the Bernie era as we have known it.

It's interesting how the situation of many of the players had probably led to this. The appetite and market for another 'Formula One' series is no longer there, both F3000 and CART are scrapping along on their knees. The media desire to pour money in TV rights has evaporated as the pay per view business model hasn't work. Kirch's banks face picking up a ruinous tab if they received no further revenue, the car makers didn't want to buy SLEC and Bernie only wanted to pay peanuts. Finally Mr E is no fool and will have watch the IRL/CART split with interest, as have the car makers - so all these factors make a deal inevitable.

Good 'poker' game though, which is effectively how it has been played ever since the car makers formed the GPWC.

BTW - I recommend the biography recently written on Bernie E, which is a very good read.

[RWC]

This is a genuine win for the teams and a good kick in the arse for bernie.They were allways going to win if they stood up to him together.WELL DONE!!!